The '32 3-Window Street Rod Gets Road Ready With Lights, Steering & Glass

Today, we'll shed a little light on our 30 two's wiring system and accessories. Hang with us while we hang some hardware

today on horsepower TV.

We'll get back to our purple 32 Street Rod project by working on the wiring,

the lights steering column and glass in our race of the week. It's a street car shoot out near motor city and we'll see who is the Post street king of the Hill. Plus we'll show you how to replace that rusty old quarter panel without even using a welder.

So hang on for horsepower TV.

Hi, welcome to the shop.

Say, have you ever noticed how street rods like people have their own personalities? For example, this 34 Chevy sedan delivery

as a high tech temperament

inside.

It's got a fully digital dash,

hydraulically lifted hood

and a fuel injected small blocks

underneath it.

And with this compact controller, I can operate the locks, power windows

and even the back door.

On the other hand, our 32 3 window from Harwood has a different disposition with its nostalgia. Look. Now we've gone back to basics with these wide whites mounted on Hali brand wheels. A manual hood

and three deuces on that small block Chevy.

We also use this thin aluminum brake drum kit from SOCAL that actually hides a disk set up inside.

Of course, the horsepower purple paint and the flames make sure this is one pure retro

ride

and that's why we call it the Great ball of fire.

Well, today we're gonna get that rod ready for the road by installing the steering column

working on the lights, wiring and gauges and first gluing in some glass.

Now, our windshield fits right in this channel here on the body

and it's held in place with this Urethane adhesive that you can get at just about any paint store. Now, we're gonna start by applying adhesive right here in the channel.

All right, I guess you're ready for this now.

Yeah, it's great timing.

Now, what we're gonna do here is we're gonna set that thing in very carefully. You bet, put the top in first.

There we go.

Then slide the bottom in.

We'll just hold it here for a few minutes

while that urethane sets up.

Of course, the back glass glues in the same way

our hardwood body came with power windows. But since we wanna wanna keep the nostalgia going,

we're gonna use these switches. We got from hot Tronics that look just like an old time window crank

that's up, that's down

and they fit right into the inner door panels and connect to the wiring that we've already run into the door.

Speaking of that, we're using a 12 circuit kit that we got from painless wiring. Now, cars like that, 34 over there would probably need one of their 18 circuit kits

to run all the extra Gizmos. Now, I've gone ahead and run all the wiring to the accessory locations and under the hood. I'm getting ready to mount the fuse panel right up here where the steering column will be. I went ahead also and fed

up this simple aluminum bracket to mount the ignition light and wiper switches

to keep things real simple under the dash. We put together this harness that connects all the gauges

and we finished off the ends with these plug in connectors that came with our painless kit.

Now

get a load of these white on black, classic moon gauges pretty cool. Huh?

And we mounted ours on a trick aluminum panel that adds to the retro look. Now the speedometer is electronic and we'll show you how to calibrate it once we get the car on the road. Now, the gauges are pretty simple to mount.

Let's go like this

held in place for the bracket

while Joe finishes up the wiring on our gauges. I'm gonna go ahead and install our I did it tilt column.

Now it attaches to the firewall with this plate down here and it's supported up on this end with this bill of aluminum bracket.

Now, the electrical connections for the horn and the turn signals use this standard GM plug in

and oh, don't worry about this ugly steering wheel. We're gonna replace it once we start on the interior.

You know, it looks like our painter thought we could use a dash of class. Uh How do you like that? Pinstriping there? Man.

I have never thought that green would go so well with purple. Me neither. Tell you what. Let me give you a hand with his wiring. All right,

we start by plugging in the connectors.

Then the dash is held in place with four screws.

I guess when it comes to wiring, there are no shortcuts, right.

Stay with us. We're gonna take a short break, but we'll show you what's what with our rod sliding

right after this?

Later on horsepower. It's a motor city slug fest as you get up close with a quarter mile contenders of NSC. A drag racing. Don't go away

for the latest news on horsepower TV. Check us out online at horsepower, tv.com.

Hey, welcome back to the shop. Well, we've got the glass, the dash and the steering column hung in our 32. Now it's time to take a look at the illumination.

Now, these are actually reproductions of 32 passenger car headlights and well, yes, they were this big. Now, the only difference is these use high energy halogen bulbs. Now, I'm gonna take one apart to show you a little trick

by drilling a hole the same size as the socket. You can actually mount your turn signal right inside the headlight housing. There we go. Now, once the sockets in place you install the bulb, then route the wiring right here behind the reflector,

then reassemble the headlight

and it's ready to mount.

Yeah, that'll do it.

We're going back more than a half century for our taillight. Look. In fact, these 1950 Pontiac rep pops work well with our nostalgic theme

and the round shape makes them easy to mount.

Just a couple of screws

and nuts, hold them right in place.

Now, the headlights are held in place with a single bolt right down here at the bottom

and it also allows the adjustment.

Now, the wiring is routed through this chrome loom here and it looks just like they did back in the sixties and these things look great.

Well, we're about to wind up the wiring today. And while we finish, how about a trip down to the upholstery shop for a look at some pleats that are hard to beat

our poster. Denny Taylin is getting ready to cover some Piero

seats with some new 50 style pleats. A

process that starts by gluing cloth for a backing to a sheet of foam

that will become the bottom of the seat.

Then he trims away the excess cloth.

The foam is carefully marked to ensure equal sized pleats.

Then then he draws out the lines before cutting on each side of the lines with a razor blade.

Of course, the secret here is to make the cut straight

without cutting into the cloth backing.

I can feel whether I'm at the sheet or not. And trust me, I've cut the sheet.

But when I cut it, I knew I was there,

I could feel that I hit it

after he's finished cutting, he pulls away the strips and the foam piece is ready.

He takes a piece of the white vinyl covering we ordered and marks it where the pleats will wind up. Oh, by the way, those are the fiero seats for our foundation there in the background.

Now, the upholster applies his magic at the sewing machine.

Here, he stitches the vinyl to the foam seat cover square, laying it in right in the middle of the cut.

Well, there's one

and he just continues until all the pleats are complete

there. You have it pearl white pleats just like back from the fifties.

Man that tears got me in stitches. Now, we're gonna check back with Denny in a couple of weeks to see how he's doing on the headliner carpet and door panels. But in the meantime,

hey, we're gonna charge ahead with our battery. Now, we chose Holly's Annihilator Battery that takes advantage of the latest dry cell technology

and cranks out an impressive 800 cold cranking amps.

We're gonna install it back here in the trunk using their billet aluminum. Hold down. Of course, since it uses dry cells, we don't have to worry about venting any fumes.

Well, I'll tell you one thing,

I'm gonna be fuming if I don't get to fire this thing up. Hey, wait a minute now, I did most of the work on this thing, so it's only right that,

well, I get to fire it up for the first time. Wait a minute, wait, we'll flip for it. Ok. As you go,

tails, I go,

man. Where'd that thing go?

Looks like tails to me.

Yeah.

Hey, I tell you what, while Joe's having his fun, we're gonna take a little bit of a break and you can take a look at this

just ahead. We'll take you from the pits to the track.

It's our race of the week from mid Michigan Motorplex. Next

tv's race of the week is brought to you by car parts.com.

Everything for cars, trucks, vans and suvs.

Hi and welcome to mid Michigan Motorplex. We're hot on the trail of another NSC. A battle this week,

this was billed as a motor city shootout.

Let's get a sample of who showed up

a menagerie of fast machines and 11 classes came to race at this National Street Car Association event.

The top fastest classes, of course Outlaw Street with a wild mix of blown and Nipe

seven second cars

and pro street with a pack of the fastest six second fighters in the nation.

Other classes include nostalgia Superstock

and

where we found the head of NSC A also behind the wheel of a 64 Hawking him. Ply.

The heritage of drag racing is very rich and uh

and you have to preserve it

and it shows where the rest of these classes came from where the rest of these cars came from. So we think it's a good idea. And as long as the NSC A is in business, we're going to keep that style of racing active

in pro street. Danny Scott was here to close the gap in the season's points race. He needs to make some stout runs in his 66 Chevelle to pull ahead. We hope to move forward some more there to, uh, pick up some more points here and

hopefully, uh, win it if we can today, uh,

tomorrow.

But, uh, we're, we're feeling pretty good about it. We was out here a few days ago test and we've heard it. We just prepared it last night. So, uh, we got some bugs in to work out this morning.

The outlaw points race pretty much belongs to New Yorker, Vinny Pacifico and his nire

enhanced 63 bet came to this race number one in the points.

And, uh, we won Bowling Green and hopefully, uh,

we'll do the best we can today. And I like to, I like to win

throughout Saturday's qualifying. The obvious pro Streeter to beat was veteran pat

me in his Popeye's Spinach Can Pontiac.

So here we go. Heading into Sunday's eliminations.

The top class qualifiers are

busy with a qualifying et of 696 at 203 miles an hour.

And in Outlaw street, Vinny Pacifico with a 733 and 186

on Sunday, there are actually two races to watch for the finals later on. Of course. And the first round qualifying, the race for points leader in Pro Street.

Will it still be Scott

or not?

It will in the first round, Scott's better reaction time helps him beat points rival Polly

Point by 1/10 of a second

so much for the points race. Now, what about Mui?

We got a fire on this round. So if we do get aggressive, it'll be this round. It'll kind of tell us what we need to do for

the next couple of rounds. So, uh,

we'll see what the track can handle this round

in back to back by runs. Busey

pours on the power with 268 ETS at over 200 miles an hour.

While out of Wall Street Ruler Pacifico continued his winning streak with top runs in the low sevens. The pro street finals were building up to a busy Scott battle

but it looks like Scott's got another race on his hands. A race against time to replace a torch piston.

I didn't even know I heard it until I got back here. So we must have heard it right in the eyes.

We

make it.

We're trying.

I think so. No problem.

Good luck. We'll be right in the borderline here.

Dollars.

Scott and crew finished their pits side surgery just in time.

But first, here's Vinny and his victorious squint over Paul Caton

who breaks in the finals about Wall Street.

Now time for the big dogs to eat,

Scott leaves the line first but can't hold the lead as Muy

runs a 692 at 202

to win one after many recent races as runner up. It was good. It was a good race. I mean, I, I thought he had me more on the tree but he didn't. It was uh, uh

he had me by maybe 3, 400 on a tree.

I knew I was going by him. I mean, I just felt the car was just moving, moving, moving, you know,

it's been running good all day.

So put Pat's name on top for this weekend

and put us down for the season. Finals of NSC, a competition in Columbus, Ohio in a couple of weeks.

Join the horsepower TV crew. March 10th through 12th for the I hr A winter nationals at Darlington International Raceway.

Coming up. How to replace that rusty old panel without a lot of new high tech parts.

Chuck shows you how right after this,

you know, I really like old cars like the 63 T bird here, but

I absolutely love new technology. Now, today, I'm gonna show you how to install a steel patch panel without a welder.

We're gonna use Eastwood's no weld panel repair kit. Now, it includes these Flanger

dimers

panel holders and their special adhesive.

Now, you're also gonna need some stripper disk to get rid of that old paint and a pop rivet gun to help secure the panel.

Now, the old panel is gonna come off with the help of this cut off tool and a chisel. But hey, I'll tell you what creative use of a hacksaw will get the job done just as well.

Now, the first step is to identify the area that needs repair.

Aside from this rust, we have an old area that's been repaired once before and

we wanna grind it down to see what's underneath

where the damage turned out to be fairly extensive. In fact, we couldn't even grind all the filler out. So we're gonna replace this panel from about here on down.

Now, I've taken the replacement panel and trimmed it to size

we laid in place right here.

There we go.

And we'll trace all around it.

Now, we'll trim the old panel one inch inside the mark.

Once the panel's gone strip the metal bare with the stripping disks on a drill

next flange the edge of the old panel with the

fing pliers from the kit.

Now we're ready for the final test fitting of our patch panel Now, if it doesn't fit quite right, we may have to do a little bit of extra trimming, but,

hey, this thing is looking pretty good.

I guess we'll go ahead and start stripping the primer

off of our mating surfaces

with the panel in position, drill your first location hole in the corner,

then insert a panel holder and repeat the process at the other corner

with the panel secured, drill the remaining holes for the rivets an inch or so apart.

Well, now we can remove the panel and use the dimpling pliers to counter sink each hole,

wipe the mating surfaces clean with some Eastwood paint prim.

Next, you can apply the adhesive in a quarter inch bead

along the original panel,

install the patch panel with the panel holders to keep its position

and begin installing the pop rivets

after letting the adhesive set up overnight. Now we're grinding it smooth and

once that's done, we'll be ready for the body filler.

We're using this metal to metal filler from Eastwood. Now it's metal reinforced and it works easy. Plus it doesn't attract moisture like other fillers do.

Now, from here on out, you pretty much treat it like a regular spot repair and hey, we're gonna treat you to hot parts right after this.

Now, horsepower's hot parts brought to you by Summit Racing equipment. Your source for high performance parts for 30 years,

say if you're casting about for a set of iron headers Well, how about these? From Sanderson?

They fit 93 and up Camaros and Firebirds plus the late model Impala sss.

Now, the rigid design makes them virtually leak proof and they got all the appropriate fittings for emissions equipment and computer sensors.

Now, they're also a good catch for you. Street rotters.

We have a little bit of a clearance problem. Now, with this good looking airborne coating, they're $500 a set 350 without it,

the scorcher T A tires from BF Goodrich are good looking too

and they'll make your machine stand out in any crowd. Now, the colorful tread is available in red, blue or yellow like ours and it's designed to handle well in both wet and dry conditions. Now, their size to fit most popular sport compacts and trucks with speed ratings of both H and V. Of course, they'll rate well with anybody that wants to make a colorful statement on the street too. Prices start at about 100 and 15 bucks.

You can punctuate that statement when you mount them on American racing's new version of their 200 s wheel. This classic design has been brought back as a forging rather than casting for a wheel that's stronger, lighter and available in a wider range of offsets. Now, you can get them 15 to 17 inch diameters with widths up to 11 inches. Of course, be prepared to roll out about 100 and $75 a piece. Well, I hate to quit when we're on a roll, but we're out of time. Yeah, but we're not leaving before we tell you what's on next week.

It's out with the old, in with the new ZZ four. That is an engine upgrade that includes fast burn heads, a new cooling system and high performance exhaust

before we test the rear wheel. Horsepower results of the seventies Z 28.

Chuck puts his money where his seat is with an upgrade in buckets

plus some cold hard facts about drag racing in our horsepower race of the week.

And remember high performance fun is what this show is all about.

Hey, man, you got the fired first. So I'm gonna drive it first. Hey, I got

a no coin flips, no coin tosses. I'm driving.

Oh man.

For information about the products used in today's show and more. Check us out online at horsepower tv.com

horsepower TV is an RTM production.